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of sorts,” and his canvases as his “well-thumbed, scratched over, blotted” manuscripts, all brushed by the hand of the Muse, “yet no more than her hand, no more, no more.” The canvases, one must declare, are much smaller, even, than miniatures, and are each dominated by a cool, sherbet-like color, although other colors, tints, shades, tones, and highlights, lurk everywhere. These are, perhaps, after all, “the months of love.” Perhaps not. The pictures, so small as to be made out with no little difficulty, are madly ambitious, a kind of paean to a strange Teddiean spring, to his beloved primavera, and to the sun, the sun of the artist’s cherished Ringo Chingado Flats, the site of his last isolated studio; and, of course, to flesh, the flesh of his fellow humans, mostly women, that he honored and adored, even as he exploited, brutalized, and despised it.

GRIMALDI
    In an unprecedented outpouring of affection and respect for Anastasia Humboldt-Grimaldi’s championing of risky art, her trenchant yet unfailingly generous critical writing, and her unwavering support of contemporary exhibit spaces, the Dimension Matrix Galerie (recently relocated in the basement of the newly Re-Reformed Gospel New Disciples Church of Self-Love in Bayside, Queens) presented a one-night vernissage of new works by thirty-four of today’s most highly acclaimed new artists. All of the works, including “Heinz Beppo’s Marsalis Dream,” by McClark Lott, an installation especially erected for Ms. Humboldt-Grimaldi, are dedicated to her on the occasion of her retirement as chief art-and-cinema critic for Ici. Yet just who is Anastasia Humboldt-Grimaldi? Is she every man’s girlfriend, the girlfriend of the whirling dervish, the girl from Ipanema, the girl in expensive tights, the girl that somebody left behind, the “shadow dance” girl, the girl that somebody loved in sunny Tennessee, the girl in the Alice blue gown, the girl in the crinoline gown, the girl with the big thing in her, the girl of the Moravian peasant factory, the girl who proudly blows the trumpet, the girl who is you, the girl who is like you, the girl who is like another girl, the girl of somebody’s feverish dreams, the girl who is an occasion of sin, the girl of Pi Beta Phi, the girl on the magazine cover, the girl who paid $ 84 for a T-shirt, the girl on Happening!, the girl who was compromised in the stock room, the girl that somebody marries, the girl that somebody wants to marry, the girl in the closet, the girl with a brogue, the girl with the golden braids, the girl who threw up at a party for a famous person, the girl who was the sweetheart of the whole battalion, the girl whom lust made free, the girl who rewrote the “Dear John” letter, the girl with the fake Rolex watch, the girl for whom “it” is not about money, the girl who eats and eats, or—is she simply WOMAN? Whatever she is, was, or will be in the exciting aesthetic future, she’s still got terrific legs, and the edgy and vibrant art world would agree with Jefty Vogel’s characterization of Ms. Humoldt-Grimaldi as “a round-tripper homer slugger like Kent Griffin [ sic ].”

HUMBOLDT
    Arrttbbeatt Chelsea
    The first chalice holds a glorious naked girl, perfect in all ways, gentle, beautifully proportioned, and, as the artist’s notes inform us, “modest in public and lascivious beyond telling” at home. The small room is dark and the only sounds audible are those from the vintage Wurlitzer jukebox that plays “And the Angels Sing” repeatedly. The moon looks down, the night grows deep, the sky over the bay turns a profound black as the moon “takes a powder.” The girl may well be locked into her own personally invented and meticulously nourished misery, and soon enough. The second chalice holds nothing, as do the third and fourth chalices. These are not true chalices, but grape-jelly jars, although this matters little, since “this” is not about money! A hat rack completes